I enjoyed the book overall. It took a good bit for me to start really getting into it. It started becoming more and more interesting right before

the “drink the milk” words popped up

. It started to really hook me I think about a chapter or two later (maybe 3?) from that one.

This might be super typical of me, but after reading it to its whole, “Drink the milk.” is most definitely my favorite line in the entire book. It just helped really kickstart it for me. Side note : I liked the character at times, but the brother was totally reckless, and like all the problems basically relied on this guy not following orders and refusing to listen if I’m being honest.

Listen, I ended up liking this better than I thought I would. It starts off very slowly. That being said, the characters are flat, the brother constantly acts terribly without any consequences, and the author seems to have this....weird...kinda fetishistic...fixation on East Asian women?? Also, the majority of the magical creatures are very definitively "good" or "evil" without nuance which is...honestly boring and disappointing. I love complex morally grey witches especially, and I know this is a book for younger children but you can definitely have those kinds of witches (and fantasy creatures in general) in stories written for that age range! Overall I would not recommend this book. There is plenty of better middle-grade fantasy to read out there.